546 FEWKES: UNIT TYPE OF PUEBLO ARCHITECTUEE 



An important contribution to our knowledge of prehistoric 

 culture evolution in the Southwest is the recognition that form 

 and symbolic designs on prehistoric pottery are more important 

 than color, in a determination of chronology. When we study 

 the geographical distribution of designs on food bowls and vases, 

 we find it possible to identify roughly the pre-puebloan, partially 

 by color and form, but mainly by the character of ceramic sym- 

 bolism, which gives a cultural classification corresponding with 

 that built on architectural features. The various complicated 

 types of designs appearing in the several regions are comparatively 

 late in evolution; with this diversity there exist certain common 

 geometrical designs almost identical throughout the whole South- 

 west. There are localities in which these simple geometrical 

 forms make up the majority of decorative motives;^ there are 

 others in which they are subordinate to, or more or less replaced 

 by, a specialized symbolism characteristic of different regions. 

 It is a significant fact that while geometrical decoration reached 

 a high development in cliff-houses, what is most important is that 

 such designs as life figures rarely occur there, although abundant 

 in pueblos which are believed to be of later development. The 

 designs on cliff-dwellers' pottery are practically pre-puebloan 

 survivals. 



Objections may be made to the statement that the pre- 

 puebloan culture is characterized by the geometrical nature of 

 pottery designs and a poverty of life figures, since the inhabit- 

 ants of the Mimbres valley decorated their bowls with a wealth 

 of human and animal designs unsurpassed in the Southwest; 

 especially as it has been held elsewhere that the prehistoric 

 inhabitants of the Mimbres were not Pueblos, but belonged to 

 an earlier culture. The Mimbres people were not in the evolu- 

 tionary series above considered; their geometrical designs on 

 pottery are radically different from the so-called pre-puebloan 

 of the north. 



^ As a rule, black and white ware is archaic and older than red, or polychrome, 

 and the prevailing decorations on it are geometric designs. It is essentially 

 cliff-dwelling pottery, but not confined to caves. 



